At the upcoming CanSecWest security conference in March, HP, along with Google, are putting up over half a million dollars who can demonstrate their cracking skills.

HP is putting up $150,000 for anyone that can get root access to a Windows 8.1 PC running Redmond's Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET).

Brian Gorenc, manager of vulnerability research at HP Security, said: "Last year we launched a plug-in track to the competition, in addition to our traditional browser targets. We’ll continue both tracks this year. For 2014, we’re introducing a complex Grand Prize challenge with multiple components, including a bypass of Microsoft’s Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) protections – truly an Exploit Unicorn worthy of myth and legend, plus $150,000 to the researcher who can tame it."

Monies being awarded to the following crackers: $100,000 for beating Internet Explorer 11 or the Chrome browser on an x64 Windows 8.1 system, $50,000 for defeating Mozilla's Firefox and/or $65,000 for tunneling into a Mac OS X system running Apple's Safari. There is a 30 minute time frame to complete the crack.